Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Feminism and the S.A.D.

(NOTE – This is not a review or a fisking of Orbach’s book…but it is an attempt to point out that FAT is most certainly a Feminist issue – just not in the way Orbach thinks…)

The connection between feminism and the Standard American Diet (appropriately referred to as S.A.D.), may not seem apparent to most. Bear with me in this rather long piece, as I belabor to make the point in showing this connection, and how it's contributed to so much ill health in America today.

Michael Pollan blames the movement for our fast-food culture. What about untold men who've never tied on an apron?

Laura Wood responded to the feminists complaint humorously:

Men have been doing nothing all these years while women slaved away in the kitchen. Here’s an all-points bulletin: Do not accept a dinner invitation from anyone named Anna Clark. Unless you like chicken nuggets.

While I found Laura's quip in response hilarious, these two articles have a lot more content worthy of consideration. Pollan's first mention of how the feminist movement changed the food culture of America was to tie it to the rise of fast food:

Besides drawing women into the work force, falling wages made fast food both cheap to produce and a welcome, if not indispensable, option for pinched and harried families.

Of course it did. Women who chase the chimera of "having it all" live in denial of the fact that their are only so many hours in a day, and when you invest your time in one area - like your career - you simply don't have the time to dedicate to the other areas of your life, like homemaking and cooking. This is common sense. Than again, no one would accuse feminists for having an abundance of that particular virtue...

Many anti-feminists correctly recognize that feminist ideology is essentially a cult-like belief with articles of faith that are accepted at face value without question...and if any facts or evidence is presented that contradicts a feminist tenet, than the facts or evidence must surely be wrong, falsified, or just not relevant. The standard method of dealing with the cognitive dissonance of reality contradicting feminist doctrine is to simply shift the focus of debate.

Note the Salon feminist Anna Clark is a self-described fan of Pollan's work:

I'm a fan of the journalist who has become the food movement's top chronicler. I pass on copies of "The Omnivore's Dilemma" and "An Eater's Manifesto" like it's my job. I social network the living daylights out of Pollan's articles.

That is of course until Pollan dares to skewer one of Anna's sacred cows...note her reaction:

So while reading Pollan's latest piece in The New York Review of Books, I was nodding along as he articulated how the local food culture manifests the good kind of movement fragmentation -- threading together diverse interests to create a powerful force. I was nodding, at least, until I got to the part where he discusses Janet A. Flammang's new book, "The Taste of Civilization: Food, Politics, and Civil Society." Pollan writes:

"In a challenge to second-wave feminists who urged women to get out of the kitchen, Flammang suggests that by denigrating "foodwork" -- everything involved in putting meals on the family table -- we have unthinkingly wrecked one of the nurseries of democracy: the family meal."

Pollan chooses not to challenge the assertion that second-wave feminists are responsible for "wrecking one of the nurseries of democracy" because they urged women to explore possibilities outside of cooking the family meal. Nor does Pollan question the notion that feminists are to blame for "urging" women to leave the kitchen, when one might imagine that those who left the aprons behind were thinking beings who made their own choice to leave, regardless of the persuasions of feminists and family alike.

Now why would he challenge or question those assertions? The second-wave feminists did in fact demean the role of the American housewife...this is indisputable. And is it really a stretch to say that cooking and feeding the family was one of the primary chores the housewife role entailed, for which the feminists so bitterly attacked? The famous feminist description of the domain of the housewife in her domicile as a "comfortable concentration camp" comes to mind...

Note that instead of recognizing the truth of Pollan's indictment, Anna does what all lefty femi-nazis do when confronted with the truth - blame men!

My take, as a feminist and local foodie? Blaming feminism for luring women out of the kitchen, stealing the ritual of the family meal, and thereby diminishing "one of the nurseries of democracy" is both simplistic and ridiculous. It's true that shared meals are powerful spaces for building relationships and "the habits of civility." But if we're going to talk about who's to blame for our current culture of processed food, why not blame untold generations of men for not getting into the kitchen, especially given Pollan's characterization of the family meal as having a meaningful role in cultivating democracy? If it's so important, why is their absence excusable?

Because those "untold generations of men" were out working to earn the money to pay for the house and the appliances and the food that the women were cooking for the family to eat, you deluded dolt! Feminism preached that women should get out of their "concentration camps" and get into the workforce and compete with the men...equality bayyybbeee!

This didn't result in the mass exchanging of gender roles...it just made life harder and more difficult for both men and women. But I digress...

Pollan concluded his article with some points I wish to expand upon:

...perhaps the food movement’s strongest claim on public attention today is the fact that the American diet of highly processed food laced with added fats and sugars is responsible for the epidemic of chronic diseases that threatens to bankrupt the health care system. The Centers for Disease Control estimates that fully three quarters of US health care spending goes to treat chronic diseases, most of which are preventable and linked to diet: heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, and at least a third of all cancers. The health care crisis probably cannot be addressed without addressing the catastrophe of the American diet, and that diet is the direct (even if unintended) result of the way that our agriculture and food industries have been organized.

As I've covered before, there is an almost synergistic relationship between feminism and the industrialization of our food supply. The industrialization of the food supply was every bit as important for the cultural-Marxist, social engineers that carried out the long march through western institutions, as was the advent of feminist ideology to subvert and destroy the Patriarchal nuclear family. The two have gone hand in hand, and we've all suffered for it in both our physical, spiritual and mental health...it literally affects every area of our modern lives.

That being said, I have a small bone to pick with Pollan's conclusion:

the American diet of highly processed food laced with added fats and sugars is responsible for the epidemic of chronic diseases that threatens to bankrupt the health care system.

While this is technically correct, the distinction between the types of fats that are added has a lot to do with it as well. This topic is fast becoming a pet peeve of mine, as I notice so many people that regurgitate the lipid hypothesis-based memes regarding "fat" as the primary culprit in causing heart disease.

Not all fats are equal.

More precisely, one of the primary contributors to ill health is the ratio of Omega-6 and Omega-3 fatty acids in your bodies cells...and the Standard American Diet contributes to a massive imbalance in the average person, with way too much Omega-6 fatty acids and not enough Omega-3's. This is why you sometimes hear about the need for eating more fish from some health "experts," to increase your Omega-3 intake.

What most people don't know, is that eating more fish won't make a bit of difference in your Omega-6 to Omega-3 ratio if your diet is still heavy in Omega-6 fatty acids...and the S.A.D. which is largely composed of the Federally subsidized grain and seed oil crops is THE single biggest source of Omega-6 in the S.A.D.

So why do the health "experts" always talk about fish as the necessary food to boost your Omega-3 levels?

While I've yet to read this book, I've read an excellent interview (pdf) she conducted in promotion of this book, in which she gave some eye opening insight into the topic.

First, she discussed the major difference between these two essential fatty acids and why they are related to our biology and the changing of the seasons:

We finally began to understand that the omega-3s are predominantly concentrated in the green leaves of plants and the omega-6s are concentrated in the seeds of plants, and that basically what we’re talking about here is two families of fats that allow us animals to prepare for the changing seasons, to either speed up, get ready for times of activity and reproduction when green leaves are available and abundant — or to slow down, hunker down, get ready for times of survival — when the fats of seeds are more prevalent.

It’s really a cool system. Plants use the changing light as the Earth makes its orbit around the sun — they adapt to the changing light, and then we adapt to the change in plant food. It really is an amazing thing, but it’s not generally understood. We just think, oh, we’ll eat this food, if we eat enough fish we’ll be healthy. There is a much bigger story than just how much fish we need to eat, or which seed oils to eat.

Two important points regarding the distinction between the two - your not going to get enough of the Omega-3 you need by eating a bunch of leafy plants. This is where animal foods play an important role in getting enough Omega-3 in your diet. To put it succinctly - in plant form, Omega-3 fatty acids are largely in the form of ALA -- alphalinioleic acid -- for which the human body's digestive system is very poor in using. Our bodies need docosahexaenoic acid and eicosapentaenoic acid...aka EPA and DHA.

While the human digestive system doesn't do a good job of converting ALA into the needed DHA and EPA that we need (it will do it somewhat...but nowhere near as much as we require), other animals are very good at it...cows eating grass (the leafy greens rich in ALA) and convert it into DHA and EPA and store it in their meat and fat. This is precisely why free range, pastured cows (and other ruminants like buffalo) contain Omega-3 fatty acids while the feedlot produced meat and dairy contains almost none.

Feedlot ruminants are predominantly fed o6-rich grains. Same goes for factory farmed chickens and pork. The quality of food products that come from animals raised on feedlots versus open pasture is affected dramatically.

When cattle are taken off grass and shipped to a feedlot to be fattened on grain, they lose their valuable store of LNA as well as two other types of omega-3 fatty acids, EPA and DHA. Each day that an animal spends in the feedlot, its supply of omega-3s is diminished.

When chickens are housed indoors and deprived of greens, their meat and eggs also become artificially low in omega-3s.

Eggs from pastured hens can contain as much as 20 times more omega-3s than eggs from factory hens.

Switching our livestock from their natural diet of grass to large amounts of grain is one of the reasons our modern diet is deficient in these essential fats. It has been estimated that only 40 percent of Americans consume a sufficient supply of these nutrients. Twenty percent have levels so low that they cannot be detected.11 Switching to grass fed animal products is one way to restore this vital nutrient to your diet.

The CLA Bonus: The meat and milk from grass fed ruminants are the richest known source of another type of good fat called "conjugated linoleic acid" or CLA. When ruminants are raised on fresh pasture alone, their milk and meat contain as much as five times more CLA than products from animals fed conventional diets

This is why we are told to eat more fish (but not too much...mercury poisoning!), or to take fish oil pills to boost our Omega-3 intake. It's not because fish are the only source...just the only source left in the S.A.D. that still eats leafy greens at the base of their food chain. (Which, of course, brings to mind the difference between farmed fish versus wild caught fish...).

As Allport noted:

All the omega-3s in seafood come originally from plants. Fish are so important to us because they’re one of the last animals in our food supply that still eat greens. That is one of the reasons why fish have become so important.

Another is that because they live in water, they require more of those omega-3s in their tissues in order to move around in that much colder environment, under pressure. So they require omega-3s in their diet, and because we now feed the majority of our animals grains instead of grasses, they’re one of the last animals we’re eating in any kind of quantity that eats greens.

Eating fish is one way to correct this imbalance of 6s and 3s in our food supply. But it’s not the only way, and it is not the best way. We have to eat 10 times as much fish to get a really healthy balance of those two families of essential fats is we would if we were eating healthy amounts of the omega-6s. If our omega-6s were at healthy levels, we would need just tiny amounts of fish or omega-3 enriched eggs or cattle that have been raised on grass.

So we now understand why American diets are so deficient in Omega-3's...because most of our meat and dairy comes from animals fed Omega-6-rich grains. Why is the ratio between Omega-6 and Omega-3 so important anyways? Allport explains:

These two families of fats compete for enzymes, for positions in our cell membranes, which don’t care whether they get loaded up with omega-6s or omega-3s. They don’t care for a reason — because they’re built that way so that they can change with the changing seasons and the changing food supply. They’re meant to go through these seasonal changes, slight seasonal changes. The reason we’ve run into problems is because we eat this high omega 6 diet year round.

So we know why the S.A.D. doesn't have enough Omega-3 in it because of the Omega-6 rich feed for our food animals...but that's not the only reason why we the S.A.D. has such a dramatic imbalance in Omega-6 vs. Omega-3's. Thanks to the marketing efforts of agricultural corporations and their incestuous relationship with the US Government to promote propaganda like the USDA food pyramid and the whole "saturated fat causes high cholesterol which causes heart disease" meme, Americans began shying away from animal fats and began using o6 rich vegetable oils instead.

From the vegetable oils that have replaced butter and lard, from other fats in our diet, from the processed and packaged foods that use vegetable oils as a convenient and inexpensive fat, from the process of partial hydrogenation, which specifically eliminates omega-3s, turning them into 6s as well as trans-fats, from the fact that our livestock are no longer fed grass and other greens but are fed grains, which are much richer in the omega-6s. . . . I don’t know how many ways! We wouldn’t need to eat as much fish if we’d stop eating those high omega-6 vegetable oils.

So what vegetable oils specifically? Corn, soy, sunflower, safflower, peanut, cottonseed and canola are typically the most widely used oils in the SAD. Not only is most manufactured, processed junk food made with these oils, but so too are most fare cooked in restaurants (fast food and slow food alike), and many Americans have also responded to the USDA/Pharmaceutical industry propaganda by substituting "non-fat' and "low-fat" cooking oils and margarine instead of the traditional oils like butter and lard in their own cooking.

So what specifically are the long term effects of having an Omega-6 rich diet year round? Remember Allport's initial explanation regarding the seasonal role of these two essential fatty acids: Omega-3's are kind of like a lubricant, meant to get things flowing and operating at a higher metabolism on a cellular level - which is why fish living in cold, dark water are so dependent on Omega-3's to move about - while Omega-6's slow down your metabolism, and promote inflammation. It's this overabundance of Omega-6 that contributes to inflammation on a cellular level. Over a long period of time, this inflammatory condition begins to contribute to a whole host of degenerative diseases. Allport expands on this, here:

Remember, we’re talking about every cell in the body — and we’re talking about these fatty acids first winding up in the cell membrane, every cell, which is why every day you see a new disease that’s being linked to this imbalance.

The last one I saw was Parkinson’s disease. I’ve seen recent reports on autism, obesity, Type 2 diabetes, macular degeneration, all of those. OK, so you’re picturing every cell, and every cell likes a certain amount of polyunsaturate in it,
and that’s what keeps it moving optimally, right? But that amount can be made up either of omega-3 or omega-6 fats, so it’s got that discretion, which is meant to work with the changing seasons.

The rest of the fats in those cell membranes will be fats of the saturated and the monounsaturated families. Those are fats that we make ourselves, depending on what we need. So, given anything that we eat, we can make whatever saturated and monounsaturated fats we need, but the polyunsaturated fats we need have to come from the diet, and each different cell type is going to want a slightly different
ratio of polyunsaturated than the others, but the family that it comes from
depends upon what you’re eating.

As detailed earlier, we know what kind of polyunsaturated fatty acids predominates in the S.A.D....Omega-6.

And this effect of having way too much Omega-6 and not enough Omega-3 in the body?

Let’s say that omega-6s are a little stiffer, and omega-3s are a little looser. That looseness enables all those enzymes in the membrane — and that’s where most enzymes live, in cell membranes — it enables them to go about their business that much faster. You can imagine it is kind of a WD-40 for the entire body, or you can think about doing jumping jacks in the air versus doing them in a thicker medium like water — that’s what the difference is. You have this slowing-down effect when the omega-6s have replaced the omega-3s, and that fits in with that hunkering down for times of leanness and survival. You’re putting on weight, and you’re slowing down.

These two families have different overarching effects. They are also snipped out of the membrane and used to make important cell messengers called prostaglandins. The first thing that we knew about these two families of fats was the fact that they made very different cell messengers. The ones made from the omega-6s are highly inflammatory, highly likely to promote blood clotting or increased blood pressure — they affect all kinds of bodily processes linked to diseases such as heart disease, obesity and diabetes. The omega-3 messengers are far less likely to promote inflammation.

So remember this the next time you read, see or hear someone blaming high fructose corn syrup for the American obesity epidemic. Yes, HFCS definitely contributes...but it's not the only thing behind the epidemic of obesity, diabetes and heart disease. You have to factor in the chronic inflammation caused by too much Omega-6 in the S.A.D. America's too fat, because we eat too much sugar AND too much inflammatory Omega-6 fatty acids.

And of course, lets not forget the pivotal role the feminist movement had in creating the society wide demand for fast and convenient foods, which have now become the mainstay of the S.A.D. Since Feminism was one of the primary cultural and political drivers of promoting the types of foods that promote Omega-6 fatty acid imbalance in our diet, one could say that feminism has certainly been inflammatory in more ways than one.

Notable Commentary from the Original Post

Velocity May 27, 2010 at 16:10:

Wow. I hadn’t ever made the link from the SAD to feminism. Interesting argument.

And an excellent breakdown of the omega-6/omega-3 discrepancy. Something to remember is that the optimal ratio for health of omega-6/omega-3 fatty acids in the body is somewhere in the neighborhood of 4:1. The problem is that in the SAD, that ratio balloons to 20:1, even as high as 40:1. It’s insane.

Zammo May 27, 2010 at 16:40:
Zammo May 27, 2010 at 16:40

With feminism came the rejection of the traditional role of woman as preparer of food, this much is clear.

That the processed food industry moved to fill in the void with such remarkably unhealthy cuisine is less well known.

With such convenient – yet unhealthy – food available, we all got fat. Women, in particular, got supersized. But rather than confront the basics of our dietary changes and address the problem with hard work and commitment, a parallel meme has developed within feminism: fat acceptance.

Fat acceptance is certainly a feminist issue because it scores on two fronts –shaming men into desiring overweight women and not having to take personal responsibility for one’s health. Fat acceptance can also score a feminist hat trick with a healthy dose of victim-status. “I’m fat because I was coerced into eating unhealthy processed food.”

3DShooter May 27, 2010 at 17:59

@HL

"Because those “untold generations of men” were out working to earn the money to pay for the house and the appliances and the food that the women were cooking for the family to eat, you deluded dolt! Feminism preached that women should get out of their “concentration camps” and get into the workforce and compete with the men…equality bayyybbeee!"

Very true. These feminist women didn’t appreciate the privileges they were being given.

Personally, I have come to enjoy cooking. There is nothing like sharing a good meal with friends and family. I eat a lot better and healthier now than I ever did when married. One gal I dated for awhile didn’t cook at all – everything came out of a box. Her kid gorged himself when he sat down for a home cooked traditional Thanksgiving meal – you’d have thought the poor kid was starving to death.

Carnivore May 27, 2010 at 19:01:

Great article HL! Interesting tie-in to feminism. Yeah, it’s this convenience stuff, because the princess is too busy with her high powered career in order to cook a decent meal. The sad part is the stay at home moms who have the desire and take the time to cook a decent meal – because they want to do good by their families – but end up using the shitty ingredients from the grocery store because they don’t know any better.

I already made the switch to grass fed beef, pastured chicken and eggs from same and raw milk. Also cut out all grains and eat my vegetables raw, for the most part. This does cause problems (related to the other thread) about prepping and storing food for survival. The canned and processed stuff stores for a long time without spoiling. But, when it comes down to starving or not, standards will have to be lowered.

Big Jay May 27, 2010 at 19:05:

I used to be a trail guide for one of those survival, live out in the desert camps for delinquent teenagers (Anasazi Foundation). We hiked around, built fire by rubbing sticks together etc… and we cooked our very unrefined foods in a pint sized stainless steel cup with a handle, and ate it with a spoon we had to carve ourselves. I quickly learned that the boys groups were much better cooks than girls groups. Boys would share information with each other, and accept feedback and learn. Girls wouldn’t. I’d try sharing information with particular girls “the whole wheat macaroni is nasty, but if you chew up a couple of sun-dried tomatoes and spit them into the boiling macaroni it infuses them with a better flavor, then you can add some of your powdered cheese, then if you add onion and garlic and use your imagination it almost tastes like lasagna!” Pretty consistently I’d get a withering look that said — I’m not stupid, I know how to cook. — Information that would fall on deaf ears in a girls group would be immediately tested and evaluated in a boys group.

I had concluded that the boys groups just wanted the food to taste good, and they thought of cooking as a fun thing to do. The girls thought of the cooking as a ‘chore’, and didn’t approach it with any degree of enthusiasm. (female staff was different, they would share information and were good at cooking the food)

I hadn’t considered that second wave feminism encouraged women to shame each other, and downplay the importance of these kinds of domestic skills. But that is exactly right. The girls groups on the trail would sometimes shame each other about stuff like this. How lame.

randian May 27, 2010 at 21:31:

One of the contributors to obesity and bad health is, in my opinion, the omnipresent push for vegetarianism and its alleged ethical superiority. Most vegetarians are, in my experience, female. Vegetarian diets tend to be very high carbohydrate diets, especially for those vegetarians who won’t eat eggs, milk, or cheese. For them, nearly all the fat they consume is high-omega-6 seed oils from soybeans or rapeseed (the most popular fats in things like salad dressings). I figure the reason men resist it because they listen when their bodies tell them they need meat fats, whereas women in my experience are much more likely to turn personal things like diet into political statements (leftist ones, naturally).

PhakeNaim May 27, 2010 at 23:09:

When I was 23 the doctor wanted to put me on high blood pressure medication, I was also coming down with asthma. So, I believed what he told me and tried taking some pills and used the inhaler for about a month. Then I thought to myself, I’m too fucking young for this crap. What the hell is wrong with me?

I stopped using the inhaler and blood pressure pills after a couple weeks of feeling like I was a sick elderly person. I took stock of my life:

Exercise habits: poor

eating habits: poor

sedentary lifestyle: CHECK

It’s been a long road the last 5 years, but slowly I’ve learned by trial and error what to do to take care of MYSELF. The doctors just wanted to mask the symptoms, they didn’t offer any advice for getting to the root cause, they just wanted to make money off me. And that’s my view of doctors to this very day. THEY’RE NOTHING BUT DRUG SALESMAN/DEALERS.

My cure for all that:

weekly regimen of pushups and chinups.

Bike ride twice a week with hills included.

Try to eat 5-9 servings of fruit/vegetables daily.

Don’t eat anything out of a box, can, or drive through window.

I try to cover all my bases. I put flax seeds in my oatmeal every day, I eat fish several times a week. Before I probably had NO Omega 3 fat in my diet.

No more blood pressure pills at age 23, no more asthma inhaler. (I contribute adding lots more Vitamin C to my diet as the reason for holding my asthma at bay).

28 years old now, feel and look much better than I did 5 years ago.

PhakeNaim May 27, 2010 at 23:18:

Oh, I still can’t cook worth shit though :-)

I just bake my fish and throw seasoning on top of it. And I steam vegetables like Cauliflower or broccoli. Sure, it’s a little bland. But all the fiber is filling and it relieves the hunger pangs.

I’ve learned that if you only eat refined, processed foods, you’re never, ever fully satisfied. You’re always hungry because those foods aren’t filling in any way. All the vitamins were added into the processed foods to make them LOOK more healthy.

Real, whole foods, unprocessed, are what the body craves. You get full on less of it because they’re naturally filled with vitamins, lots of fiber, minerals, and whatever.

I could eat chips and cereal and junk food all day, but I’d still feel tired, depressed, hungry, and unsatisfied.

Keoni Galt May 27, 2010 at 23:31:

"I just bake my fish and throw seasoning on top of it. And I steam vegetables like Cauliflower or broccoli. Sure, it’s a little bland. But all the fiber is filling and it relieves the hunger pangs."

This is where understanding that the entire "saturated fats is bad for you" garbage is such a huge deal.

Try mixing in grade A butter and a bit of freshly ground sea salt in with your steamed vegetables. Voila…not bland!

Also, what many people also don’t realize, is that much of the vital nutrients in our foods are fat soluble…which means that when you drench your vegetables in butter or some other healthy fat, as you chew your food, the vitamin content is absorbed by the fat — which is than much more easily absorbed by your body! Same goes for salad dressing.

The problem with salad dressings is that most are made with the Omega 6 rich vegetable oils. Make your own with extra virgin olive oil and some vinegar. I also make salad dressing using extra virgin (expellar pressed) macadamia and walnut oils.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, it’s far better to eat healthy fats with your vegetables than to eat them raw!

Oh, and don’t worry about "lean" meats as much as where the meats come from – grass fed beef/buffalo/chicken/pork will naturally be leaner. If you’re buying such meats, you have NOTHING to worry about in eating the fat from naturally raised animals…i.e. chicken skin, pork fat, fatty cuts like bacon,etc. Eat it all up with gusto!

Remember, animals raised on their natural diets store all of the healthy nutrients (like the Omega 3’s and CLA etc.) in their fat cells…you’re actually losing nutrients if you trim the fat, throw out the skin, etc.

There’s a reason why the old saying was to "live off the fat of the land." That’s because it’s only been in the last few decades that "fat" has been demonized so as to promote the sale of "low-fat" and "non-fat" processed foods and oils.

TrollKing May 28, 2010 at 00:24:

Wow. Amazing article. Im actually going to have to re-read this and pick through it and do some googling to edumicate myself. This pissed me off though:

Besides drawing women into the work force, falling wages made fast food both cheap to produce and a welcome, if not indispensable, option for pinched and harried families.

I realized a couple years ago that I would be around 3 inches taller if my mother had actually cooked during my childhood. My dad always cooked. He wasn’t around much though. My mom never cooked. I have seen her bake bread, in a bread machine, a total of two times in my 27 yrs on this planet.

There was a time when I slept in my mothers office, under the desk, cause my parent couldn’t make the house payments. If it weren’t for my grandmother I might have actually starved to death. My mother, and fathers, idea of breakfast was pooring some cheerio O’s into a zip lock bag and handing it to me. I remember my baby sitter screaming at me cause my parents didn’t know how to make breakfast. My parent was never around.

Even when I lived with both of them, thanks feminists for the dual working family. When there wasn’t fast food, I learned how to cook. I became good at it, cause we all have to eat. Its amazing what you can make with a couple of cans of beans, some noodles, tomatoe paste and ranch dressing…Just kidding, not really. There were too many times growin up when I simply didn’t have the usual 10-20 bucks left on the kitchen table and the fridge was empty. Most of the time my grandmother, a real old school woman, would show up with bags full of mcdonalds or kfc or taco bell. It was better than going hungry, and was one of the few times in my life that I actually felt cared for, loved. I miss my grandmother, she’s still alive, but she has dementia. She can’t remember what I said five minutes ago, but she remembers what her classmates said 70 years ago. Women havn’t changed. They never will. There are a few good one, like my grandmother but they sometimes give birth to bad ones like my mother.

I grew up thinking I was upper middle class because my parents have degrees. It wasn’t until I hung out with upper-middle class kids that I realized how poor I was growing up. My mom has a degree in physics and in law, patent law. My dad has three degrees in physics related materials and is also a doctor and got another degree several years back. Both of my parents are very educated, but also very dumb. My mom is a radical feminist and my dad a complete beta.

I am a high school drop out. I went to rehab instead of prom. My younger brother is working on his masters and im still working on my bachelors. There is another aspect here. A painful one. My brother looks like my father. I don’t. My whole life women have pointed out to me how my brother doesn’t look like me, usually with a strange smirk or expression of bewilderment on their faces. Then there is the fact that everyone in my family wears glasses, except me. I have perfect vision. BUT literally every member of my family, even my uncles and aunts, wear glasses. My mother, brother, father and every other member has four eyes. Also my brother has almost no leg hair or facial hair, just like my dad. I don’t think either of them could even grow a full beard. My brother has actually never tried. At 25 he grows lil patches around his face. I have been shaving since 12. I shave in the morning and by noon I have a 5 o’clock shadow. My brother has all sorts of heart related and blood pressure related problems that my dad also has. I have have none. I am either the luckiest, and unluckiest, person to hit the gene expression branch on my way tumbling through the ugly tree of life or female hypergamy is responsible. I need to get a dna test. I just don’t want to know the truth. I am confronted with too much truth already. I don’t know if I can handle it. God Damn I hate female nature. Ok Rant over.

I will have new posts up within the day, I might even force(or just spam) welmer until he publishes my posts. Or I can force you to read my rants. ;)

Or you can have some more:

I went home to a empty house. Hell, I remember being the last kid picked up from school. At the time my mom worked from home and she still couldn’t manage to drive 2.5 miles down the road and pick me up from school on time.

I remember in elementary school, technically 5th grade but the school was undergoing constructin and we had classes of about 250 students for almost two years. I remember being the last kid picked up from school. I still remember this nice, female teacher, worrying whether or not I would be ok if she left me and my younger brother alone. She had to leave to pick up her own children. My mom was over four hours late picking me up, I had called her numerous times. School got out at 3:00 pm and she couldn’t find five minutes to drive 2.5 miles and pick me up before 5, 6 or at this time 7 pm. Then 20 minutes later this kid, from a single mother household, who thought of himself(in 5th grade) as a thug and gangster came up to me and placed a knife against my throat. He took five dollars out of my pocket. This is one reason(jabberwocky) that I started walking down the streat, a lil less than a mile, to the comic book shop and I would hang out there. That’s when I learned that I can’t count on anyone. Not even my own mother.

Over the next couple of years, from 5th grade to 7th grade I didn’t have too many problems. But in 8th grade I moved with my mom and lived in egypt. I had AK 47s placed in my face on a daily basis, but the egyptian farmers who were drafted into the military police were usually really cool. It was mainly when I moved back to the US to live with my dad that cops began to harass and harm me. They only care about females, they do not protect males. Then there were the other thugs. The ones carrying guns in HS and I only carried a knife. At 5′6″ and 110 pounds in 10th, 11th grade, nobody fucked with me, for the most part, cause I had a look. After years of running around on the streets of egypt and europe(I have travelled by myself since I was 10 yrs old, thanks again mom) I had guns pointed in my face. I had my ass kicked because I was american or because I fucked an egyptian girl and her boyfriend didn’t like it. Hell police liked fucking with me for no reason.

Feminism has caused the loss of an uncountable amount of potential male hours of life and creation. Men create civilization. Women create society.

Women seem to like to destroy men, especially their spirit. Hell, They like to do this to women too. They even call it ‘Soul Murder’.

crella May 28, 2010 at 00:28:

"Now I’m beginning to see why women might be so addicted to perfection. They have a lot to live up to – a couple of thousand years of art history, and a couple of thousand airbrushed boobs and bums to deal with every week."

No, they’re trying to outdo every woman they know. Like they’re thinking about ‘a couple of thousand years of art history’ when they look in the mirror…believe me, it’s nothing that deep. It’s competitiveness and one-upmanship. A really stupid way to spend your life. The only way to look like Madonna is to be born Madonna. Period. What’s best for your frame and body type should be ‘it’, not trying to look like a model. Do women really consciously compare themselves to models on a daily basis, or is it all in Ms.Wolf’s mind?

TrollKing May 28, 2010 at 00:56:

Also, Hawaiian Libertarian and welmer and any other person here at the SpearHead. Would you like to publish something on my blog. Your trollking would be honored if you would appear in his court. Hawaii would you like to publish this same post on my blog, maybe with a 101 intro into some of the more esoteric aspects. With all due respect, (notice that I said that), if you don’t I will just post your stuff on my blogsite anyways. The Troll King will be heard. So will his subjects.

Keoni Galt May 28, 2010 at 01:12:

LOL! Post away….I don’t care.

I blog for the love of writing…to clarify and organize my own thought process…and to try to share with others the things I think I’ve figured out. I don’t do it for money, fame or recognition. Post anything I write at your own blog freely.

I don’t care.

Your personal story is quite illuminating. Yet another testimonial as to how Feminism has fucked up so many lives.

I too would probably be taller, and not had some of the health problems I’ve had growing up, if I had a balanced diet instead of the S.A.D. I was raised on.

I’m betting my own kids will grow to be taller, stronger and smarter than myself…only because I know better on what to feed them than how my own parents fed me.

TrollKing May 28, 2010 at 01:57:

Well, my offer is still open. You can send me anything, in the email, and I will probably publish it on my blog. Almost certainly. Anyone can submit. Just email me.

Yes, Feminism has fucked up my life. Infact, I would say it fucked up my mothers life more. Men are adaptable. I always have been, but then again maybe that is why I didn’t put a shotgun in my mouth like my buddy brad did. Or daniel. Or Tony(he hung himself). Or jake(he purposely overdosed) or many of my fallen brethren.

Remember that I have never been married, or had children. I could die tomorrow and nobody would really miss me. My parents would go through the motions, maybe they would even shed a few tears. Maybe some people I havn’t talked to in years would come to my funeral. Just like friends of friends came to brads funeral. Or daniels. They forgot him the next day. Am I the only one that finds this fucked up? You can go to any bar and ask a woman about anna nicole smith and most women can tell you more than I can. They can’t however remember the males who dropped dead around them throughout their high school years.

Hell, this isn’t limited to females. I don’t remember the names, or even the faces, of three girls that were cheerleaders who died in a drunk driving accident my 11th grade year in HS. I do however remember them. What I find really apalling is that I meet woman after woman and when I bring up male suicide they suddenly flash back to some dude they knew in school or someone who was a friend of a friend. Then five minutes later they have forgotten all about it. I don’t forget. I simply have trouble adding up the number of peolple I knew at the age of 25 who were dead. I havn’t made any new friends in two years for this simple reason. Im tired of people dying around me.

PhakeNaim May 28, 2010 at 09:08:

My desire for women was already pretty low before I started coming here and reading these posts. After reading what TrollKing wrote and everything else, it’s practically non-existent now.

The thing is, earlier this week I called up a girl I used to know at work. She’s a 36 year old virgin, never married, probably never had any relationships. (You’d think I’d struck gold, right?) Unfortunately I suspect, and have been told, that she has a mild case of Asperger Syndrome. To put it succinctly, she doesn’t interact and socialize with other people easily and she doesn’t pick up on subtle nuances quite well I don’t think. Not to mention she isn’t remotely attractive to me, which is probably 80% of her problem with men right there. I mean, I’d be totally willing to overlook certain failings in her personality if she was at least good looking to me. But that wasn’t the case. She is a caring person though to her credit.

Anyway, in a moment of sad desperation (plus the fact she asked me out once) I decided to call her up and see what she was doing. We talked, and I sort of made plans to take her out to get ice cream together. Well, after sleeping on it, I decided the next morning to not take her out. I realized waking up that morning, after stewing all night whether or not I should take things any further with this girl, that life would simply be more harmonious if I was alone. In fact, life without any relationships would be better for my mental health. (Thank you, women).

To make a long story short, I came up with an excuse that I was busy (didn’t want to hurt her feelings) and canceled on her. She said I could call her up any time I felt like doing something with her. I couldn’t really tell how she felt while listening to her on the phone, she seemed to take it well when I said I couldn’t do anything with her. Who knows, maybe she felt relief just like I did. I know she was attracted to me because once she told me I was in one of her dreams without my clothes on.

But getting back to my epiphany, it was when I woke up that morning that I realized, it would be unfair to her and myself to try and create a relationship where ZERO attraction exists. I felt nothing for her. I would’ve just been using her. And for what? To relieve my own loneliness? To make just ME feel better? What about her feelings, did I want to make her feel better? Could I ever truly love her? Obviously not without being physically attracted to her. To try and force myself to love her and want her would be a lie.

And there’s my whole dilemma. For me, the thing that got this ball of wax rolling was because I read Lori Gottlieb’s article entitled “Marry Him.” In short, it’s about settling for a man you don’t really love. It’s nothing more than an article declaring that in women’s best interest, it’s better to have a husband you don’t really care about, than to have none at all. Yay, don’t us men all feel loved now?

Let me tell you, I tried out her advice (stupid me) and attempted to settle for one measly date with I girl I wasn’t attracted to, and the next morning I woke up with a guilty conscience and a feeling of shame. I felt trapped by what I instigated and now I needed to bring it to a swift end. Never, and I repeat, never am I going to settle for a woman I’m not attracted to. Period. It’s a lie. You’re using people when you SETTLE. And you’re being selfish.

Lorri Gotlieb should be ashamed of herself. Imagine if a man wrote that book, he’d probably get tarred and feathered.

Now, I’m not going to say that all women are like Lori Gotlieb. Obviously the ones with the least bit of sympathy for men’s feelings will completely disregard her “advice” and won’t settle for just any man. I certainly wouldn’t want to be “settled” for.

Now, getting back to what I said earlier. I have given up on the hope of finding a woman. And at this point, I don’t think sex would be worth living in close proximity with a women, what with all the nagging and the tiny morsels of affection I’d recieve (only when I’m good). I’m 28 years old, but I probably should have realized I wasn’t relationship material (i.e. Wanted by Women) at a much earlier age. I could’ve spared myself years of self-doubt and insecurity and just focused on my hobbies or getting a better career. But now that I’m here, there’s a certain feeling of freedom developing in me. The fog is starting to lift. If I could, I’d just avoid women altogether. I’ll do my best to not glance at all the women walking around in skin tight lycra pants, revealing tops, and g-strings popping out the back of their jeans. Because none of it was meant for me to look at anyway.

Sincerely,

PHake Naim (Giver Upper on Women)

Uncle Elmer May 28, 2010 at 13:01:

"...it would be unfair to her and myself to try and create a relationship where ZERO attraction exists."

Your response is noble and correct. Despite a lot of bs talk on the internets about banging and dumping chicks, getting involved when you have no true attraction or interest is a mistake.

Save up some money and go east young man.There are a lot of acceptable (and physically fit) women there who will be interested in you.

Zammo May 28, 2010 at 13:47:

- Nicole "So feminists are currently attempting to co-opt fat acceptance the same way they did secularism and humanism. They’re claiming that fat acceptance is feminist when nothing could be further from the truth.

Until about a year ago, they were deriding us (normal and fat women) as “breeders”. So don’t be fooled. They still hate normal and fat women, and think we should all be striving for single digit bodyfat. They just realize that the pressure has alienated most women who don’t know how to not be fat without starving. So it’s more like blatant falsehood than any kind of trick."

There is certainly a strong element of feminism which utterly rejects a woman’s choice to be a mother and homemaker. There is also a strong element of feminism which simply rejects the needs and desires of men. I get the sense that this is where fat acceptance is coming into its own within the feminist movement. Being attractive to the “male gaze” is something to be rejected out of hand simply because the “male gaze” is a manifestion of the patriarchy.

If a woman is not attractive to the “male gaze” then she is being true to feminism by rejecting the patriarchy. This also gives her permission to eat like a pig and be completely sedantary.

Feministing.com recently had some discussion about this. The vast majority of the posters were self-proclaimed fatties and had the most incredible rationalizations for their unhealthy eating habits.

J@bberw0cky May 28, 2010 at 15:21

“Now, getting back to what I said earlier. I have given up on the hope of finding a woman. And at this point, I don’t think sex would be worth living in close proximity with a women, what with all the nagging and the tiny morsels of affection I’d recieve (only when I’m good). I’m 28 years old, but I probably should have realized I wasn’t relationship material (i.e. Wanted by Women) at a much earlier age. I could’ve spared myself years of self-doubt and insecurity and just focused on my hobbies or getting a better career.”

I feel you, but has Game not helped? Lift weights and learn game. Men can be ugly if you have muscles and game. I also say, try prostitution. And about settling; Settling is a bad word. But at the end of the day, we all settle to some extent. With that said, don’t ever marry or let a women live with you. We need to settle to some extent, but we should never settle for unfair family and divorce laws.

In the cause of full disclosure, I’m married. My life has been a constant uphill battle of self improvement (as are many), and probably would have escalated to steroids and plastic surgery had I not gotten to an attraction level that I needed to be in order to score women I find attractive (hey, I was horny, and that motivates, blame hormones). I didn’t need to go that far luckily, and I find my wife very attractive, as she perfectly fits my type. Was it worth it? Thats a tuff question. I had something to prove to myself and others. I did.

However, I also wasted a lot of potential in other areas of my life. A professor once told me, “I don’t think you’re used to being told ‘no’.” She probably meant it as a bit of a dig, like I’m spoiled, but I took it as a compliment, because I wasn’t spoiled, and rather had to learn to demand what I felt I deserved. I learned to not accept ‘no’. Find strength and resolve in your darkness, find freedom and fulfillment in your pain, much like Globalman has. Thats what I did in many ways.

I was told ‘no’ so often by women, it stopped mattering. The word lost its power. I was made fun of so much in my youth for being different, it stopped mattering, and I embraced my differences, and learned to play the social game by my own rules. If you understand that weaknesses can be a source of strength, and strengths can be a source of weakness, than you understand what leads to true greatness. Not innate superiority, but overcoming superiority from a position of inferiority.

The history books write these triumphs as if the inferior was actually superior all along, but thats not true, they simply had more to prove, more motivation to succeed, and more reasons to play by their own rules, and not by the preconceived dictates their superior opponents used. Those are the greatest triumphs of history. Being the underdog is a gift, not a burden, as long as you believe that failing is the first of many steps to true success, to true greatness, and not the birth right of shallow superiority which leads to laziness and greed and one-dimensional thinking.

When Mohammad Ali no longer had the fastest hands and reflexes in the boxing world, he found strength in his weakness and played by a new set of rules. He would curl up his arms in defense and cower in the corner of the ring as his opponents pummeled him over and over. He let his superior opponents think he was in trouble, concentrating on absorbing the blows and protecting his head, and as they wore themselves out playing by their own rules, he waited, rested, and prepared for the final devastating assault on his exhausted opponent. The Rope-a-Dope strategy was invented. That is why he is the greatest. He played by his own rules.

I’m just saying, if what you are doing isn’t working, try something else, and repeat until you die.

Common Monster May 28, 2010 at 15:52:

Lest anyone get carried away thinking there used to be some golden age when women routinely prepared great meals, I present this snippet from H.L. Mencken’s “In Defense of Women” (circa 1917):

"…women seldom show any of that elaborately conventionalized and half automatic proficiency which is the pride and boast of most men. It is a commonplace of observation, indeed, that a housewife who actually knows how to cook, or who can make her own clothes with enough skill to conceal the fact from the most casual glance, or who is competent to instruct her children in the elements of morals, learning and hygiene–it is a platitude that such a woman is very rare indeed, and that when she is encountered she is not usually esteemed for her general intelligence.

This is particularly true in the United States, where the position of women is higher than in any other civilized or semi-civilized country, and the old assumption of their intellectual inferiority has been most successfully challenged. The American dinner-table, in truth, becomes a monument to the defective technic of the American housewife. The guest who respects his oesophagus, invited to feed upon its discordant and ill-prepared victuals, evades the experience as long and as often as he can, and resigns himself to it as he might resign himself to being shaved by a paralytic. Nowhere else in the world have women more leisure and freedom to improve their minds, and nowhere else do they show a higher level of intelligence, or take part more effectively in affairs of the first importance.

But nowhere else is there worse cooking in the home, or a more inept handling of the whole domestic economy, or a larger dependence upon the aid of external substitutes, by men provided, for the skill that is wanting where it theoretically exists. It is surely no mere coincidence that the land of the emancipated and enthroned woman is also the land of canned soup, of canned pork and beans, of whole meals in cans, and of everything else ready-made."

In short, most women are and always have been horrible cooks. Even the worst fast food is a distinct improvement over what all but a tiny percentage of women can come up with. Would Spam even be viable longterm in the marketplace if this were not so? The assembly lines of cheap fast food places prevents the women (around here they’re predominantly women) who work on them from doing too much damage to the “food” they’re making.

Instead of blaming feminism, let’s congratulate the men who put the science and the technology and the capital to work to liberate us from homecooked hell!

Keoni Galt May 28, 2010 at 21:31:

@ Common Monster - "Instead of blaming feminism, let’s congratulate the men who put the science and the technology and the capital to work to liberate us from homecooked hell!"

This is utterly wrong, Common Monster.

There are three components to “good cooking.”

1) Quality of ingredients.

2) Precise and deliberate preparation.

3) Attention to detail and methodical observation.

But of the three, QUALITY OF INGREDIENTS is the most important.

Many a cook has ruined a good meal by not adhering to #2 or #3, but a meal is doomed to substandard if the basic ingredients are substandard to begin with.

Nutritionally, aesthetically and taste-wise, you can only polish a turd so much.

Get the best pastry chef in the world to bake a confection – but only give him or her margarine as the only oil allowed to cook with…and I’ll bake the same recipe he or she uses – but I get to use lard and real butter instead.

100% guaranteed my pastry would beat his out in a blind taste test to any neutral taster.

Big Jay May 28, 2010 at 22:25:

Its interesting to me how how big-agriculture has given us a default of getting fat, because that’s the shortest path to great profitability. Corn is unbelievably automated. Last time I checked, a bushel of corn cost the same amount as a bushel of corn in the 1830’s, despite the utter decimation of the value of a dollar. Now thats productivity gains! But we haven’t seen similar productivity improvements in a lot of other crops. So we default to eating corn, even when we think we’re eating beef. Conspiracy or not, its pretty obvious when you follow the money.

Nicole May 29, 2010 at 06:32:

Zammo, during the 1990’s they tried to convince us that we were victims of the “patriarchy” by claiming that fatness was caused by sexual abuse. It went as far as so-called therapists inducing false memories of sexual abuse in women just because they were fat. I don’t doubt that they’re repackaging some of that.

So now we’re going to be victims of the misogynistic fat bashers even though the fat bashers are actually victims of feminist upbringing and media.

8 comments:

Interesting.The first thing that came to my mind when your article mentioned seeds as the source for Omega-6 fats was that most of our frozen vegetables are seeds: corn, peas, lima beans, etc; even canned goods are mostly seeds. The leafy portions are harder to freeze or store dry.

The leafy portions also require more preparation.

Where do root vegetables or fruit vegetable(such as string beans)stand in relation to the Omega fats?

It has been the men for countless generations that went out and hunted game, for a long time risking their lives doing it. It has been the men that were and still are the laborers on farms. Men have also raised cattle and FISH. Ever watch Deadliest catch?

Furthermore what contributions have the feminists made? Gathering a few nuts and berries? Seriously?

Men didn't want to spend a lot of time preparing the meals in the past because they have been dead-tired from super long back-breaking days procuring the food. I think 2 hours in the kitchen in the old times paled in comparison to the 12-16 hour work days that some of the farmers of old had.

If they want equality, then let them go labor for it, I am not opposed to equal opportunity, and never have been... oh wait, you can hear the crickets chirping already.

This is unrelated to food, just your previous material. I had a thought about our banksters the other day:

The FED gets to print the Wampum, while we create all the wealth. We cant trade anything until we sell much of our wealth (usually our labor) for that wampum.

If you were the king of an island with 10,000 people on it, and seashells were the medium of exchange, and you issued a declaration all seashells were yours, but would loan out the seashells at interest to all the businessowners, fisherman, farmers, clothiers, et cetera so they could pay their employees and get the economy going...............I think the people on the island would awaken to the scam. But with printed money and not wampum, its as if people simply can't see it.

The more I think about our economic system, the more screwed up it appears to me. We really ahve been hoodwinked. We make wealth, tons of it, but will always be in debt to people who get to print the medium of exchange.

Now I know why people I thought of as "anti-government-types" are always wanting to trade services or trade in gold. They dont want to feed the beast.

Anonymous, that was a great analogy. Unfortunately most people don't even have a basic understanding of what the concept of "money" as a medium of exchange for real wealth really entails, and who believe that a debt based economy is the only way to have the technological advancements of modern society.

Anon, have you ever seen this?http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gKX9TWRyfs

____

HL, very interesting.I can't tell you how amused I am that we live in a day and age of Food TV and the "celebrity-ization" of chefs and food preparers and most of the watchers are women (who happen to be munching on popcorn or Ding Dongs). A generation of women who find it difficult to get off their ass and actually learn and refine the fine art of healthy, wholesome cooking on a daily basis.

Food TV and its culture speaks to food as entertainment, as a sensual, lazy delight. Food as a hobby, not as the fruition of disciplined rigor.

BTW, I believe Polan was referring to unhealthy fat ratios in processed foods, not to the presence of fats. He is wise enough to know the difference.

Having grown up in institution, from daycare to college to the office, many women do not know how to cook, or do not have the time or patience for it. They do not understand how to make the process of cooking enjoyable. If a potential husband wants a future wife to cook, he could offer to pay her way to cooking school. Everyone remembers the song sung by Howard Keel in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. The poetry of that song amused me because he said he would pay her way through cooking school if she would be his bride. Today, a feminist might think that was two kinds of oppression.